Recent research shows no significant educational benefits from providing summer schools, extended school years, or year-round schooling to disadvantaged students. However, the severe educational difficulties faced by these students, combined with the many practical reasons for deviating from the traditional school year, are strong reasons why…

This study investigates the self-concept of 37 Cambodian children who have recently resettled in Richmond (Virginia) after experiencing war, turmoil, and refugee camp life in Southeast Asia. The study group consisted of 19 Cambodian males and 17 Cambodian females, whose ages ranged from 5 to 14 years. About 17 percent of the respondents were in…

This book reports a study of learning and socialization in typically urban schools characterized by didactic teaching, minimal exploration and initiation by the children, little probing for personal or intellectual meaning, and strong adherence to established curriculum and external symbols of success. The child population includes low-income…

Numerous reports have noted the difficulties inner city children have in the typical public school environment. The inner-city child, whose basic skills are often less advanced than those of his suburban counterparts, drops further behind as he grows older. Furthermore, few programs are directed toward changing the basic attitudes and academic…

This paper describes a pilot mentoring/tutoring program which paired undergraduate and graduate students with homeless, at-risk, urban elementary students. The project addressed students' poor school performance and disparities in access to technology for minority and disadvantaged students. It purchased computer software and established a…

This technical report outlines the results of a correlational study of an Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) measure, a Reading Comprehension measure, a Vocabulary measure, and a statewide, large-scale reading assessment. The effects of school income level, gender, ethnicity, Special Education status, and English Language Learner status are also…

In the last five years, a growing number of large, urban school districts have moved to close what are termed "troubled" 6-8 middle schools and have opened K-8 schools in their place: Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Newark, New Orleans, New York City, Oklahoma City, and Philadelphia have been among the first to do…

The situations in which young adolescents identify anger and the strategies they use in response to anger were studied with students from a midwestern urban middle school health class. The sample included 53 sixth graders, 41 seventh graders, and 41 eighth graders. Responses to a one-page survey indicated that students reported more anger…

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation developed and sponsored the Middle Grades Initiative (MGI), which began in 1989, in five urban school systems: (1) Baltimore (Maryland); (2) Louisville (Kentucky); (3) Milwaukee (Wisconsin); (4) Oakland (California); and (5) San Diego (California). The purpose of MGI was to change the ways schools educate young,…

Urban Head Start graduates were compared with comparably poor Pre-K graduates in this longitudinal study, in an effort to evaluate the long-term effects of the Head Start program. A sample of 227 children were included in an analysis of third-grade report cards, standardized Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) achievement scores, and a…

This document describes how Philadelphia's (Pennsylvania) Asian students who exited from the English-as-a-Second-Language (ESOL) program in June 1990 at seven New Instructional Model schools functioned in mainstream classes. The study population included 42 high school students, 6 middle school students, and 13 elementary school students. The data…

A large urban northwest school district is engaged in the construction of a central accountability policy that depends on school-based implementation. As part of this effort, the district has implemented a standards-based exit policy. Each school has identified students as either meeting grade-level standards or not meeting these standards. This…

Through its efforts in 12 middle schools in 5 cities, The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's Program for Disadvantaged Youth is trying to challenge the assumption that certain children are uneducable. The first steps in this program were detailed in "Gaining Ground," which described the thoughts and hopes of educators in 1989 through 1991…

This document is the first volume of a two-volume study that explores the gender and racial/ethnic factors contributing to differential participation and performance in mathematics by elementary and secondary school students in the Montgomery County Public Schools (Maryland). This first volume contains an introduction and three major sections.…

Intuitively, class size reduction is a good idea. Parents support it because it means that their children will receive more individual attention from teachers. Teachers like it for the same reason and also because it creates a more manageable workload. It is generally assumed that the fewer students in a class, the better they will learn and the…